Fool for Love (Montana Romance) (14 page)

Amelia took Michael’s offered hand, as gracious as a queen.  Charlie reached for Amelia’s hand as soon as Michael let it go.

“It’s so nice to meet you.”  Charlie squeezed Amelia’s hand and smiled from ear to ear.  It was welcoming as lemonade and pie.  Eric always did like her.  “Eric hasn’t breathed a word about you to us, but I see congratulations are in order.”

“I’m sorry?” Amelia balked, suddenly on the defensive.

Charlie nodded to her stomach.  “Let me guess, are you about five months along?”

Amelia squirmed at Eric’s side.  “I-” she began, flustered.

“Looks like you two work as fast as we do,” Michael teased Eric, sliding his arm around Charlie’s waist.

It was like someone had handed him a perfect little gift.  Michael and Charlie assumed he and Amelia were married.  Well, he wasn’t about to correct them.

“We sure do,” Eric replied, resting his arm around Amelia’s shoulder.  Let her try to wiggle away from him now!  “Just like you and Charlie, I saw Amelia here and fell in love at first sight.”

Amelia went stiff as a board under his arm.  Nope, he wasn’t playing fair by springing another pretend marriage on her.  Yep, he might just catch it later.  Good thing he could give as good as he got.

“Well, I would hardly say that it was love at first sight with Charlie and I,” Michael said, contradicting himself by meeting Charlie’s smile and beaming at her as if the world had filled with sunshine.

“Horseshit,” Eric blurted, then caught himself.  “Sorry.”

Charlie had the good sense to laugh at him.  Amelia was still stiff and pale.  He couldn’t tell if she wanted to run or beat him upside the head or both.

“Let’s go in to dinner and we’ll tell you the whole story,” Charlie said to Amelia.

She saved the situation by breaking away from Michael and stealing Amelia right off of Eric’s arm.  Charlie hooked her arm through Amelia’s as if they were old friends and preceded Eric and Michael into the dining room, saying, “Have you had a difficult pregnancy or an easy one?  Mine has been as easy as pie.”

Eric shot a questioning glance to Michael.  His friend shrugged.  He didn’t seem to have a single question or concern about him showing up in New York City with a brand new English wife.  Then again, after the way Michael had met Charlie, he would have been a hypocrite if he had.

“Charlie probably shouldn’t be asking a woman she just met about … you know,” Michael began and cleared his throat.  “But she’s been fascinated with the whole experience of being pregnant from the start.  As fascinated as she was with the process of getting that way.”  He arched one of his enigmatic eyebrows over his glasses and Eric had to laugh and slap him on the back.

“Sounds like you two are gonna end up with a large family.”

“Very large,” Michael replied with a wry grin.  There was a genuine light in his eyes.  “I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t looking forward to it.”

“Having lots of kids or making them?” Eric teased him.

“Both,” Michael replied as though it was obvious.

Eric laughed louder than he should have, drawing a few disapproving frowns from hotel patrons.  He didn’t care a lick.  Seeing Michael again set things to right somehow.  Michael was a much-needed piece of home.  And Eric was surprised to find that he was jealous of his oddball friend and the life that he was certainly going to have.

Who would have thought that a grubby cowboy like him would be standing in a fancy New York City hotel wishing he could have a pretty wife and a whole parcel of kids to see him
through the rest of his life?

They caught up to the ladies as the hotel restaurant’s maître de showed them to a table in the corner of the room.  Eric moved to hold a chair out for Amelia as Michael did the same for Charlie.  Eric watched his friend closely, watched the way he sent Charlie a secret smile as she took her seat.  That smile was returned with such fondness from Charlie that it
gave Eric hope for the world.

He tried giving Amelia the same warm grin as she fussed her way into her chair.  She met his eyes for half a second with a scowl that could freeze a lizard in a desert before looking away, cheeks flaring red.

Hell.

Amelia picked at her food, taking a small bite, then reconsidered and ate a larger one.  She was unnerved by the sudden appearance of Eric’s friends and furious with him for letting them believe she was his wife.  Under normal circumstances it would have caused her to lose her appetite.  But her baby was still hungry, so she ate, trying her best not to make new friends.

If only she wasn’t so easily drawn into their conversation.

“The school is almost finished now,” Eric’s friend with glasses, Michael West, said.  “It’s too late to bother moving before the end of this school year, but when they start up again in the fall it will be in a modern facility, complete with electric lights and full indoor plumbing.”

“You don’t say!” Eric replied, leaning back in his chair.  “And the power station was built that fast?”

“Yes it was,” Michael said, a glimmer in his eyes.  “No more expensive generators.  The whole town can be easily electrified now.”

Eric blew out a low whistle.  “A power station, a school, a mess of new houses.  Where’d a town like Cold Springs come by that kind of money anyhow?”

Michael and Charlie West exchanged a look of such mischief that Amelia burned to know the answer.  She had no doubt the Wests were involved somehow.  She opened her mouth to ask a question.

She forced her lips shut before it could be asked and sat back from the table.  She shouldn’t know them.  She shouldn’t get involved.  It would only make the eventual break harder.

“Of course the school is three times bigger than it needs to be right now,” Charlie West picked up where her husband left off.  Amelia quirked an eyebrow in spite of herself.  “But I fully expect that with all of the modern conveniences Cold Springs suddenly has or will have, business will flock to the area, and with it new families.”

“And if that fails I’m sure that between the two of us we’ll be able to boost the school’s enrollment.”  Michael sent Eric a teasing look.

When that teasing look turned to her as Eric laughed, Amelia’s heart dropped to her stomach.  She lowered her eyes.  What was Eric thinking, convincing his friends that they were married?

“Hey!  If the new school needs teachers, I’m sure Amelia would be happy to help out,” Eric said.

Amelia blinked.  Teaching in a school?  She held her breath.  She’d never considered such a wonderful thing.

And she never would consider it.  She let out her breath and took another bite of dinner, focusing on chewing.

“Are you a teacher?”  Charlie turned to her with a curious smile.

“Amelia worked as a governess in the house where I was staying in London,” Eric explained when she stayed quiet.  “I saw smiles on those little Hamilton girls’ faces every day.  They adored Amelia.”  He smiled at her as though the Hamilton girls weren’t the only ones.

A wave of miserable longing crushed down on top of everything else in Amelia’s heart.  “I adored them as well,” she replied, her voice far too hoarse for company.

Charlie reached out a comforting hand to pat her arm.  “I’m sure they miss you too.”

Every instinct in Amelia’s soul wanted to warm to the bright and bubbly Charlie West.  She shot a frown at Eric.  It was tantamount to cruelty for him to introduce her to friends who were as kind as he was.

“Not that it’s our decision,” Charlie went on, “but you would be more than welcome to teach at the Cold Springs school.  That is, provided you don’t have your hands full at home.”  She shared a smile as
though they were old friends.

Amelia’s chest grew so tight it was hard to breathe.

“Teachers shouldn’t be that difficult to find,” Michael went on, missing the emotional undertone to his wife’s statement.  “I’m more concerned about law enforcement in Cold Springs at the moment.”

“Law enforcement?  Why?” Eric asked.  “What happened?”

Michael huffed an ironic laugh as he cut his steak.  “Franklin and Edsel Turner were involved in my father’s mess.  They skipped town back in October and no one has heard from them since.”

“Good riddance!” Eric exclaimed.  “So who’s the new sheriff?”

“Kent Porter,” Michael said with a tone of irony that peaked Amelia’s curiosity.

Eric laughed outright.  “Who in the hell let Kent Porter even think about wearing a badge, let alone hold a gun?”

Michael shrugged.  “No one else stepped forward for the job.  At least no one else that the town council was going to give it to.”

“I’m surprised they gave it to Kent.”

Amelia picked up her fork again, caught between bewilderment at a conversation she was the only one who knew nothing about and relief to be out of the center of attention.

“I don’t think he’ll last long,” Michael said, taking a bite of steak.  “Maybe you should stand for the position when he steps down.”

Again Eric laughed.  “I’m a rancher, Michael.  Always have been and always will be.  I could never live in town.  Besides,” he sent a proud smile to Amelia, “Amelia here just helped me land a deal on the voyage across the Atlantic that should set my ranch up nicely for years to come.”

“Oh?”  Charlie and Michael both perked up and looked to Amelia.

An awkward pause followed.  Eric sat back in his chair and smiled at Amelia with expectation.  He wanted her to tell the story.

“We met a Canadian gentlemen, a Mr. Benton Chase, on the ship,” she rushed.  “He owns a grocery distribution business and he and Eric came to an arrangement to work together.  I h
ad very little to do with it.”

“What Amelia is trying to say,” Eric continued her explanation with a wry grin, “is that just when I thought I was completely sunk, she marched on in with her cleverness and her business sense and found me a way to save the ranch.”

“That’s fantastic,” Charlie said.

Something wasn’t quite right about Charlie’s smile.  She wasn’t happy.  Amelia felt a flare of protectiveness for Eric.

“It’s more than fantastic,” Eric went on, all smiles.  “Ben’s a hoot, Michael.  You’d like him.  Maybe you can make a deal with him too.”

“I’ll have to meet him.  But, Eric-”

“We worked out all the business on the ship, easy as you please.  Ben’s going to send me the paperwork to make the deal official.  It might even make it to Cold Springs before we do.  Hell, I might even be packing some of the herd up and shipping it off to him by the end of the month.”

Michael and Charlie squirmed in their chairs, trading wary glances.  When Amelia saw their reaction, dread crept up through her gut to her chest.

“Eric,” Michael began, clearing his throat, all seriousness.  “Curtis has been updating you about what’s been happening at the ranch, hasn’t he?”

Eric’s wide grin faltered.  “He sent me a couple telegrams here and there while I was in London.  Why?”

“He hasn’t been sending you regular updates?” Charlie asked, expression darkening to a frown.

“Regular enough,” Eric answered.  His certainty was gone.  “Did something happen?”

Michael and Charlie exchanged looks that sent Amelia into a panic on Eric’s behalf.  All thoughts of her own troubles vanished.

“It hasn’t been an easy winter for your ranch,” Michael revealed, face pinched as though he didn’t want to say what he had to.

“Tell me,” Eric demanded.

“There was a blizzard in January,” Michael told him.  “We were all stuck indoors for a week or more.  When people could get out and share their experiences and restock supplies, Curtis showed up in town and said that about half of your herd had frozen out in the fields.”

Amelia’s heart sank lower as Eric’s face went pale then splotched with red.

“What the hell was half the herd doing out in the fields in the middle of a blizzard instead of keeping safe in the barns?”

“I don’t know.”  Michael shook his head.  “This is just what Curtis said after the storm was over.”

“Hell,” Eric muttered, throwing down his napkin and thumping back in his chair.

“There’s more,” Michael went on.  “Come late February, Curtis showed up in town again saying that most of your ranch hands and their families had left as soon as the snow was gone.”

“What?”  Eric shot to sit straight.  “Who?”

“Garrett Price and his brothers, Hernando Ruiz and his family, and the Walter brothers.”

Eric gaped.  “I’ve known those men and helped put food on their tables for ten years now!  I was there when Hernando’s daughter was born!  They would never just up and leave like that.”

“I agree,” Charlie backed him up.  “I’m convinced Curtis fired them.”

“Curtis didn’t fire them,” Michael contradicted her with a sigh as if they had had the argument before.  “There’s no proof that they did anything but leave of their own volition.”

“You heard Eric,” Charlie argued on.  “Those men were loyal to him and they knew that they were in good hands.  They would never have left.  Curtis must have fired them.”

“But why?” Michael argued.  “You need men to work a ranch.”